


Appearances are deceptive

by Szeherezada



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: F/M, Gen, Gray and Lyon are step brothers here, Modern AU, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 21:03:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8117521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Szeherezada/pseuds/Szeherezada
Summary: It truly hadn't been Gray's best day - spending the entirety of it with Lyon wouldn't have been such a bad vision if they hadn't been quarreling.And then, the day became better.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Pozory mylą](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8111713) by [Szeherezada](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Szeherezada/pseuds/Szeherezada). 



> Szeherezada: Story written by me for my friend's birthday some time ago, translated by Asexualsilesia. Posted on Tumblr previously. Original (Polish) version can be found on ao3 too. And plz, don't kill me for ending, I know it's not very good, but writer's block is a bitch :')  
> Asexualsilesia: I can do better, but I'm dying rn. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

It would be hard to imagine better weather for fishing. In the city, where, especially in the noon and shortly after it, heated concrete, asphalt and walls were radiating with hotness impossible to bear, but pleasant, cool brisk was flying from the sea and few trees growing nearby the coast were giving soothing shadow…

Hah, no. Gray would like it to be like that, but the reality was a mean bitch that liked playing with human hopes and dreams.

Fullbuster knew that weather by the sea usually changes very rapidly (like the weather in the mountains), so he wasn’t surprised when flaming sun stopped being the only trouble. So far it was so hot like someone up in the sky, thinking about rule saying that “if cookies can bake in ten minutes in one hundred eighty degrees, then in one hundred eight thousand degrees they will get ready in one sec!”, had turned up the heating on maximum, in sadistic craze wanting to burn alive all living on Earth, but now it was even worse.

Did he feel irritated by that? Yes, but taken aback? Not at all.

The air became stuffy and heavy, dark clouds suddenly appeared from nowhere. Soon after that powerful wind started up, yanking branches of the strongest trees with as much fierceness as despairing, bankrupt businessmen were plucking their hair during the big crisis in 1929.

And then first droplets fell down, light rain in few moments became heavy drench and so fishing ended.

Gray would bear the weather, but thinking about spending time with his step-brother that came here with him made him moan tormentingly. Maybe it wouldn’t be so awful, but they had had an argument (again) few hour earlier, and their older sister, tired of their quarreling, threatened them of being really awful if they wouldn’t have to go out and make it up. And Ultear, if she wanted, could be a very dreadful person. So what could they do? They packed up and went to the small city near Hargeon. It wasn’t famous city, so, despite the middle of the season, they easily found summer house, even quite cheap, and they were in it right now - in dry, comfy inside of the wooden shed.

Gray reached for another can of beer from small, touristic fridge. It was his second or third can today, he didn’t care for counting. He took another sip, observing the world behind the window. Earlier he was sitting on the veranda, just to not be in the same room as his brother, but, when it started to flash and thunder, he came back to the building. Lyon was sitting on his bed with earphones in his ears and staring into the laptop’s monitor. Not like Fullbuster was bothered about Vastia losing contact with the world. Tomorrow they will probably behave like nothing had happened (and then they will argue about some shit), but now they were keeping their distance as much as tiny building allowed.

The boy sighed and stopped looking at the window. Bored by monotonous weather, he pulled out his phone, checked facebook, liked and commented Erza’s photo from fencing contest, and looked through another few post. Suddenly he realized it was surprisingly quiet. The thunderstorm had ended.

Without any doubts, he put on his jacket, grabbed car keys and told Lyon he’s going out (not like he noticed). He found himself near his BMW, caught his fishing equipment and jumped into the boat they borrowed from nice old guy soon after getting there and before the rain.

He didn’t sail far away from the coast. He also didn’t cast his rod right away, he firstly stretched himself on the boat, exposing his face to the sun peeking out behind few remaining clouds and listening to waves’ hum. He was laying for only a few minutes before pushed by water’s current boat hit something. Gray saw it was only a small stone island and pushed his boat next to the obstacle, and his day wouldn’t have probably ended in such unexpected way if he hadn’t had noticed blue hair and palms on the rocks. Surprised by seeing someone else in the place like that, he sculled to get on the other side quicker and then he saw her: the girl was unconscious, it was sure she wasn’t just lying in the sun or napping above the water. The main cause was freshly ended thunderstorm, but stranger’s appearance was also an important clue. First thing saw by Fullbuster was a reddish-brown stain on the rocks, shining scarlet in the sunlight. Girl’s arm was also red, and dark, almost crimson line staring nearby her elbow and ending before shoulder.

Gray also noticed his new companion’s prettiness - delicate features, pale complexion, long, dark eyelashes, small nose, full lips… And she also had something else, something charm-y, something… supernatural, but Fullbuster wasn’t able of saying what it was.

He jumped outside of the boat and knelt down beside the girl.

“What happened? Hey, do you hear me?” he shook her arms lightly, looking for any signs that she’s awake, but the stranger didn’t react. The boy came back to the boat (let’s mark it was swimming away), cursing in his thoughts about forgetting about tying it to some prominent piece of rock (what he did a few seconds later). Searching through fishing equipment, he grabbed first aid kit and went back to the girl. Wanting to ensure she wouldn’t slip on the slimy rocks, he pulled her to himself, focused on her wound. When he was about to reach for bandages, he noticed this interesting thing.

That girl had a tail. Fishtail, to be specific. Gray was shocked. He wiped his eyes, not believing what he was seeing, but it wasn’t hallucination. Fullbuster thought if Lyon meanly put something in his beer, but it wouldn’t be in Vastia’s style.

He reached out to the girl’s tail, his hand shaking with emotions, but in the halfway, he decided against it. Groping unknown girls wasn’t in his style. Besides that, Gray wasn’t feeling…. authorized? That’s right word. A mermaid (because it’s really a mermaid, probably, yeah?), amazing. And that ‘supernatural’ feeling also explained itself. Dammit, nobody would believe him! Maybe he should take some photos as evidence? No! Wait! Patching up the wound is more important!

He shook his head, trying to get rid of distracting thoughts. He opened the kit, took out the bandages and hydrogen peroxide, and got to working. When antiseptic fluid spilled across the split skin, mermaid pulled up with a gasp of fear. And at the sight of the boy changed fear into panic.

The girl was ready to jump into the water, but Gray caught her in the waist.

“Let go of Juvia!” she screamed, still jerking.

“But first I’ve got to patch you up, you’re wounded!”

“Juvia doesn’t care about it, leave Juvia alone! You’re not taking Juvia anywhere!” Mermaid tried to punch her ‘torturer’, but Gray caught her in the way that made it impossible to impose a blow.

“I’m not to take you anywhere, I only want to help you!”

The girl stopped trying to escape, visibly puzzled by Fullbuster’s words, but she was still alert.

“Y-you don’t want to take Juvia?”

“And where would I be supposed to take you?”

“Juvia… Juvia doesn’t know, but you take mermaids somewhere!”

“We?” boy didn’t understand, looking into her eyes full of horror and wariness.

“You, people!”

“Never saw any mermaid before. You’re first.”

“But mermaids do disappear. You’re taking them!”

Gray sighed, a little bit tired of this conversation, but thought about those words - mermaids indeed weren’t something you can meet every day (if someone asked him a few hours later if he believes in those creature’s existence, he would laugh), so it isn’t impossible that someone tries to catch them for money. But if this race was found about, it would be the discovery of the century, it would be loud about it everywhere, so it’s not so possible that mermaids are hunted.

“You know, we, people, we don’t even believe in mermaids’ existence. Okay, maybe the majority of us doesn’t.”

Mermaid didn’t answer right away, probably busy about wrapping her mind around concept of her companion telling her the truth.

“How can you not believe we don’t exist? Maybe unicorns and fairies also do not exist?” This time, the girl seemed to be less scared and more appalled by this idea. Fullbuster was taken aback. He didn’t quite know how to answer, so after few seconds of silence he pulled himself together and changed the topic.

“Show me your hand, I’ll bandage it.”

Juvia became wary again and carefully looked at her companion.

“Why are you nice to Juvia?"

Inpatient growl escaped from boy’s mouth.

“Maybe ‘cause you need help?” he asked with irritation, but with amusement too.

“Juvia is going to trust you” she answered finally, but with some kind of strange, warning undertone in her voice that was saying ‘if you fail me, you’re going to rue that”.

The boy started bandaging. Mermaid wasn’t able to stop looking at his palms, warm and strong, wrapping the material around her arm with lots of carefulness and delicateness.

“Juvia thanks” she whispered when he finished, examining bandage’s structure with her finger. And then she quickly kissed Gray’s cheek and jumped, blushing, into the water. He had mixed up feeling about it - he didn’t want her to go so fast, fascinated by her, but he couldn’t say that kiss wasn’t a nice surprise.

The boy decided against fishing that day, went back to his boat and then to his house. And he would probably think of this all as a dream, if next day he hadn’t cut himself during peeling some shapely fishes he caught with Lyon, and when he checked the first aid kit he saw with pleasure and excitement lack of bandage. And the next day he noticed long tail and shyly waving to him from between the waves blue haired girl.

The trip had seemed to be awful, but, like Gray told himself, appearances are deceptive.

He will have to thank Ultear.


End file.
